Reaching a peek of despair

Here's the latest instalment in my "just because the spell check is OK doesn't mean it's the right word" series.

"sneak peak"

Which one can only assume is a particularly untrustworthy Alp.

To comma or not to comma?

Full disclosure: I like commas, always have. They’re cheap, widely available, and so darned cute. And I fully admit to overusing them, on occasion. Like now, for instance. Did I need the comma between “overusing them” and “on occasion”? Nope, not at all. The sentence would’ve read fine without it. I just like 'em.

But while some commas are optional, one must-have comma, ground into me since childhood grammar lessons, is  the “serial comma.” This is the one that precedes the “and”  or “or” at the end of the list, and is 100% non-negotiable (well, for me at least). For example, if one were going to pack for an exciting trip abroad:  

Correct: She packed her stockings, garters, and heels.

Incorrect: She packed her stockings, garters and heels. 

So when Nik and I started writing together, I was amazed that he omits, more often than not, the serial comma. I know times are tough and we all need to economize, but there are many more commas I’d cut before the serial. 

The great comma debate: Well, as it turns out, the serial comma, also known as the Oxford comma, isn’t blindly used across the UK. In fact, as I started Googling the situation, it seems that there’s something of a raging debate over said comma, the so-called Oxford-Cambridge divide. 

Now far be it from me to insert myself in a centuries-old feud, but here’s a quick who’s who:

Team Comma: 

• The US Government Printing Office Style Manual

• The Chicago Manual of Style

• Elements of Style - Strunk and White

• MLA Style Manual

• The Oxford Style Manual

Team Only-When-Necessary-to-Avoid-Ambiguity:

• Style guides for The Guardian, The Times, The NY Times, and The Economist

• The Australian Government Style Manual

• The Cambridge Guide to English Usage

For lack of a comma. One of the most famous examples of the ambiguity that can result from a missing serial comma comes from a documentary of Peter Ustinov published, somewhat ironically, in The Times (“Planet Ustinov,” 22 Nov 1998):

“highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector.”

Not knowing how Mr Mandela occupied himself in his spare time, I can’t comment on his alleged collection. And he could've be a demigod, for all I know. But I’m fairly certain he wasn't 800 years old. 

Here are some more examples, I’m making these up in my head as I fold the laundry:

Happy to be home, he hugged his sons, Charlene and Abigail. 

Touring the city, she purchased gifts for her mother, lace panties and cigars.

He visited his aunt’s house, a massage parlor and a bookstore. 

See? I could go on and on. 

Fully admitting my bias, I think Garner’s American Usage has the best take on the situation:

“Whether to include the serial comma has sparked many arguments. But it’s easily answered in favor of inclusion because omitting the final comma many cause ambiguities, whereas including it never will.”

Or will it? Try as I might, I can’t seem to come up with an example where my beloved serial comma actually introduces ambiguity. Can you?

On the crest of a waive

Here's a new one. I'm going to name and shame here, because this is virtual illiteracy. I've just received an email from the Woodland Trust in the UK, that contains the immortal sentence:

"We made it our top story because without your voice these plans could simply get waived through, with worrying consequences."

Does the author actually know what waive means, I wonder? Is it a case of adding an extra letter to a word somehow makes it look more important?

Christmas Eave

The latest spelling howler I've come across is "eves". You know, the overhanging bits at the edges of roofs.

Ooh, no: it's eaves, isn't it!

Usual gripe: the author and the spell checker may not notice, but the editor should.

Nominative and accusative. Damn me, Ben Aaronovitch

Jay and I are currently competing in the "Who can read through Ben Aaronovitch's Peter Grant series the fastest" competition. It's neck and neck, with me edging ahead by simple virtue of actually being able to find the books in my house.

I was brought up sharply in book three, though, by this:

"The school she was talking about was the local comprehensive, Acland Burghley, where countless generations of the Peckwater Estate had been educated, including me and Abigail. Or, as Nightingale insists it should be, Abigail and I."

Now, Mr Nightingale, and possibly Mr Aaronovitch as well, have it wrong. The use of I or me depends on whether the first person is in the nominative or accusative case. If the person is the subject of the sentence, it's "I": I went for a walk. If the person is the object, then it's "me": the letter was sent to me. The confusion usually comes when there's more than one person involved: Abigail and I? Abigail and me?

There's a simple way to solve it: does it work without Abigail? Which is correct:

The school she was talking about was the local comprehensive, Acland Burghley, where countless generations of the Peckwater Estate had been educated, including me.

The school she was talking about was the local comprehensive, Acland Burghley, where countless generations of the Peckwater Estate had been educated, including I.

Easy, isn't it? So easy that, once again, I have to ask why the editor who is paid to check the book for legibility hasn't picked up on it. I'll partially excuse Mr A for being too caught up in transferring the book from his head to the keyboard, but the fact he's chosen to highlight it by an incorrect example is either a total howler or a smug dig at modern usage where people will often make a correction to "Abigail and I" even when it's wrong. I'd like to be generous and allow the latter, but as he's made the same mistake at least twice more in the book so far (I started this post when I was on page 10, I'm now on page 156), I fear the worst.

And whilst I'm on the subject, try out this sentence from the book:

"Dining clubs being what posh undergraduates did in the fifties and sixties when they weren't having doomed love affairs, spying for the Russians or inventing modern satire."

It lacks one of the key criteria that makes a sentence a sentence: a verb. If it were written:

Dining clubs are what posh undergraduates did in the fifties and sixties when they weren't having doomed love affairs, spying for the Russians or inventing modern satire.

then all would be well. But using "being", which I believe is a participle (this is taxing my grammar recollection of lessons thirty years ago) makes this a participle clause that should have been part of the preceding sentence that, you have probably gathered, talked about dining clubs. This really bugs me as a disease in modern writing: I'm currently reviewing a technical document where the author has done it repeatedly.

Mr A, sack your editor. I'm loving your books, and I hate being stopped short by a piece of bad grammar.

Captain's Log, supplemental. Page 242 makes it clear that actually Mr A doesn't care that he's getting it wrong. To which my only response is "shame on you". As I've written previously, sloppy writing is unfair on people learning to read and who may be struggling to read anyway; and there comes a point where a book is so hard to read through the grammatical errors that I'll give up on it. Who wins then? Me did this, me did that. It's very wearing. And the really annoying thing is that if Mr A hadn't drawn my attention to it with the quote that I started with, I might not actually have noticed....

Forgettable Facts and Loathsome Lists

I absolutely adore fiction of all sorts. Admittedly I doubt that I'll ever pick up a bodice-ripper, but a second-hand dealer once marvelled at my astonishingly catholic tastes (small c, on that occasion). 

I also love a well-written factual book. My preference is for history around the Napoleonic era, but the critical thing is the "well-written" part. I think Fergus Fleming is a masterful writer, weaving the historical facts into a mesmerising story. All his stuff is great, but his masterwork is probably "Barrow's Boys", the tale of the expeditions sent out by the Royal Navy to explore the world two hundred years ago. Buy it, you won't be disappointed. 

However, what prompted this post was walking in to the library today and spotting a book called "Cat Flaps and Mousetraps: The Origins of Objects in our Daily Lives". With apologies to the author, I loathe books like this. They may be be beautifully written and rigorously researched, but the fragmentary nature leaves me cold. So whilst I adore Bill Bryson's travel writings, I'm no fan of "A Short History of Nearly Everything". 

These books usually turn up, for me, as Christmas presents. Even as a child, there was some sort of "Fascinating facts" annual that would turn up each year.  "Thank you so much", I say, through gritted teeth. Unless it's from my wife, and then I can be bad-tempered about it instead. The book lands on a shelf and sits there gathering dust, unloved, to be browsed briefly during reorganisations or house moves.

One such book turned up this Christmas. “Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops”. Now it actually raised the occasional smile, though I’m not sure I ever chuckled. One thing in the book, though, really annoyed me. Remember my post on Spelling and Punctuation? Go read, please. Well, the book in question does this:

Customer: Apparently innocent query? 

Bookseller: Deadpan response. 

Customer: Amusing reply that highlights them as a fruitcake. 

Bookseller: …

It’s the … that drives me mad. We’ve already had the punchline, we don’t need the … to signpost “Oh, by the way, that was the punchline. You may now laugh.”

So, no books of lists next Christmas, please. Stick to fantastic fiction and I'll be delighted. 

Shear ignorance

Since I posted my rant about spelling and punctuation, I've stumbled over another couple of horrors. Perhaps this is going to turn into a theme.

So here are the latest. To spare the blushes of the authors and the editors responsible, I won't name names.

"Slight of hand".

Should be sleight, of course.

"The metal was sheered away by the force of the blow."

Should be sheared. For the technically-minded reader, ductile materials like metals fail by the action of shear stress rather than normal stress. OK, you didn't need to know that.

"univerisity". Poor proof-reading.

Finally, for now, misuse of words: using "infer" or "inference" when what is meant is "imply" or "implication". I don't need to explain the difference to you, do I?

Tools, todgers, and terrible metaphors

One thing that often makes it difficult to take erotica seriously is the vocabulary. Using the correct anatomical terminology for the genitalia is likely to come across as a bit clinical, but any euphemism or informal term is unlikely to appeal to all readers. I remember a friend at school regaling us with a story from a porno magazine he had acquired, where the male protagonist had removed his enormous tool from his trousers, and the reader had only realized after some time that this was his penis rather than a DIY implement.

If you want to see all the possible euphemisms for the male genitalia, plus spend the rest of the week doubled up with laughter, you have to read this: Veet for Men Hair Removal Gel Creme

What one finds acceptable is likely to depend on personal preference and upbringing, and there are bound to be enormous regional variations in the English-speaking world as to what's used and what isn't. "Cock" or "pussy" might be fine, or a bit uncomfortable, or downright amusing.

But this is a multimedia age. Rather than all the wordy, often embarrassing descriptions of sex, why not use modern technology to save the effort of turning the author's mental image into the readers'? Sales of erotic novels are far greater for e-readers than for paper copies, so that it's possible to digest them in public without everyone around knowing what you're reading. So authors could commission their own photoshoot or movie snippets; or these days there's plenty of free porn out there on the web. "Yes, that's just the sex scene I was going to write, so drop it in and I can save writing 2,000 words! All I have to do is top and tail it." And not one mention of a... well, better not say so as not to cause embarrassment.

"Come here," she said, huskily. "I have a present for you."

 

That was amazing," he said. "Next time, shall we leave the lights on?"